The End in the Beginning
by united states of fail
Summary: A not-so-happy accident in a speculative AU-verse. Character death.


A/N: Don't own this. Speculative AU fic thing from Zuko's POV. Enjoy, and feel free to review.

I am broken up inside.

Well, broken at least. I'm standing in front of the urns that contain the ashes of my family, and I feel nothing. The three of them, lined up side by side, the last people I had who shared the same blood as me, you'd think I would feel something, but no. I'm just hollow.

My friends are with me today, standing around me. They aren't sad either. They aren't empty though. Aang is looking politely distressed. Everything he does is somehow, very, very polite. And always appropriate, no matter what the scenario. It's almost annoying. He just won a hundred year war. He should be thrilled. He had seen an innocent man die. He should be in agony. But no, just this polite facade. I wanted to hit him. I wanted to strangle him. I wanted to watch him burn.

Next to him, Katara stands with her arms crossed, trying her hardest not to let her impatience with the whole thing show. She didn't care about these people. They were a thorn in her side, an impediment in her path to self-righteous world peace. She was more than glad to see them all simultaneously removed, but for the sake of PR, she's lined up here with everyone else, pretending to care. I find myself wondering how much of her goody-two-shoes routine is real, and how much she just pretends at for Aang. No one can be that good all the time. We all stumble.

Sokka's face is carefully blank, and he's staring something above and to the left of my head. I can't see what he's looking at, but I sure as hell hope he's enjoying it. He's probably thinking about a strategy to take down the remainder of the Fire Nation troops in the Earth Kingdom. Though most of them returned upon hearing of the Fire Lord's death, a few die-hards had settled in permanently and weren't about to surrender to a bunch of kids. But with Bumi reinstated in Omashu, we could probably rally enough troops to reclaim Ba Sing Se and finish routing them out.

Toph, though, her...I just can't look at her. I can't take it. Out of all of us, she's the strongest and the least likely to break, but she loved him. Me, I tolerated him, maybe even got to be a little fond of him. But her- she loved him like he actually was her uncle. That's what she called him, while they would sit and drink their tea and gently insult one another. He was the only one she was gentle with, and she was the only one who voluntarily put up with with his advice and stories. And now, she's the only one coming undone at his funeral. Her fists are clenched, and she stares straight ahead, but her cheeks are flushed and there's a slight tick to her jaw, like at any moment she's going to crush the world. Or at least the two vases on either side of him. She's standing next to Sokka, and he reaches over and grabs her hand. She tenses up, but then relaxes as his thumb rubs against hers in slow circles, and she sniffs. If she cries, I'm out of here.

Mai and Ty Lee stand apart from everyone else, and it's as if they've temporarily switched bodies. Ty Lee is silent, almost as though she's absent from her body. She moves with everyone else, and responds to outside stimuli, but no one's home. She's just as empty as me. Mai, though, is losing it. She's giggling at odd intervals, and when she's not, she stands with a slightly confused smile on her face, and leans against Ty Lee. Agni knows when you've come to Ty Lee for support, the world's officially gone to hell. The two of them are like puppets who've had their strings cut for the first time in their lives, and without the puppet master, they might as well be dead.

Lo and Li finish their prayer to Agni, and turn to take the ashes and spread them. Lo takes my father's urn, Li takes Azula's, and I'm left holding the one in the middle. I stick my fingers into his remains, and I know I should feel something, I really, really should. As they recite the Final Words, and we each toss handfuls out into the wind, I think about him, and his tea, and his well-meaning advice. He meant well. He really did. And he really did care. About me. About my well-being. About the little earth bender he found in the middle of nowhere. About the man who tried to mug him. About the children he came across crying and playing in the marketplace. And about his damned tea.

And now I know why I'm broken. Why I can't cry, can't show any emotion. He was my good side, and now he's dead. He's dead in a raid that was only supposed to kill Azula and my father, but got him too. I told the raiders to get the last members of the royal family in the palace. How was I going to know he'd returned, after his victory at Omashu, in a final effort to reason with his brother? And I'm alone, and I've got no one for advice, no one for tea, no one who loves me unconditionally, or at least tolerates me. And like this, I'm supposed to take over a shattered nation that just lost a hundred year war.

This is not going to end well.


End file.
